A-
The small-scale musical seems to be having its moment on Broadway. Last season brought us Maybe Happy Ending, which won several Tonys, and now we have this two-hander one-set import from London via Cambridge (the one in Massachusetts), which apparently took seven producers and 28 co-producers to bring to Broadway. It’s a sweet story about two twenty-somethings who are adrift in different ways. Dougal (Sam Tutty) is a British theater usher who lives with his mother and watches too many Hollywood movies. Before he was born, his father Mark, whom he has never met but whom he has often fantasized about, took off for America and became a millionaire. Now Dougal has surprisingly been invited to New York to attend his father’s wedding to a woman 27 years his junior. Melissa, the bride, has delegated her younger sister Robin (Phoenix Best, u/s for Christiani Pitts) to pick him up at the airport. Robin, a barista, is as buttoned-up and guarded as Dougal is spontaneous and boundary-less. He wants her to join him as he crams as much sightseeing as possible into his 48 hours in New York, but she isn’t interested. Melissa has also given Robin the task of picking up the wedding cake but, strangely, has not invited her to the wedding. (It’s hard to believe that a bakery would not deliver a $2000 wedding cake, but I willingly suspended my disbelief.) After their errand goes awry, Robin gives into Dougal’s relentless enthusiasm, and, courtesy of Mark’s credit card, they spend a night on the town during which Robin reveals some disturbing secrets. They nurse their hangovers and go their separate ways the day of the wedding but are reunited that night shortly before Dougal’s return flight to London. The show’s main attraction is Tutty, winner of an Olivier for playing the title character in Evan Hansen; this role fits him like a glove. His irrepressible good cheer is infectious. I hope we will be seeing more of him. I was disappointed to catch an understudy for Robin, but it is hard to imagine the role better played. Kudos to Sutra Gilmour for designing a clever set based on a revolving turntable that starts as a baggage claim area with the conveyor belt surrounding huge piles of oversized silver suitcases that transform to a variety of locations including a coffee shop, a subway car, a room at the Plaza and a Chinatown restaurant. The large “Baggage Claim” sign overhead when the show opens doesn’t just apply to the luggage. Jim Barne and Kit Buchan wrote the book, lyrics and music, which I list in decreasing order of effectiveness. The music serves the story well enough but is not memorable. Occasionally, the blast of electronic sound was loud enough to set off the noise alert on my smartphone. Tim Jackson does fine work as both director and choreographer. I had put off seeing the show, because the description sounded too precious for my taste. It turned out not to be. Although stopping to think about the plot for very long is likely to reveal the holes in it, while you are watching the show, it all seems possible. I enjoyed myself and understood why the show has been playing to packed houses with a lot young people in the enthusiastic audience. Running time: two hours 15 minutes including intermission.
